Bear wins ‘Food and Drink’ category in Metro’s Venture Candy 2011

Bear has been announced as the winner in the ‘Food and Drink’ category of Metro’s nationwide competition Venture Candy, to find the UK’s next top entrepreneurs. Voted for by Metro readers, Bear produces natural sugar-free snacks based on the diet of bears which live in the wild.  

The aim of Venture Candy is to provide growing enterprises with exposure, profile and support.  The finalists were chosen by a panel of judges, including Stuart Trevor, Sarah Beeny, Piers Linney, Jo Malone MBE, Tyler Moorehead and Richard Reed. Metro received more than 16,000 votes for readers’ favourite new businesses. Bear won 54 per cent of the vote in the ‘Food and Drink’ category.

Bear will receive a host of valuable business assets that will give them the business foundations they need to grow including: 

•          £50k minimum ad campaign per category winner (£250k in total) in Metro

•          Marketing and branding advice from The Scarlett Mark, the co-creators of Venture Candy

•          Ad campaign creation from The School of Communication Arts

•          Exposure to a high profile panel of successful entrepreneurs

•          Business club membership from Adam Street Members Club

•          Cloud based unified communications solution from Outsourcer

Hayley Gait Golding says, “We’re so excited to have won.  We were keeping our paws crossed because it meant so much to us but we know our business is just a bear cub and we still have a lot of growing to do.  We don’t have a huge budget for advertising so this will be great to help us spread the word and put Bear on the map. Lots of people are loving our nibbles already and we want to be the nation’s favourite healthy snack. Healthy doesn’t have to be boring.”